Bloodstained Romance
by Sideos
Summary: Dib's life has ground to a halt. Zim no longer poses a challenge making his own mission to save earth has pointless. He is depressed, apathetic and yet there may just yet be one person left to help and maybe help him in return. DibxGretchen. Self Harm.


_Pain isn't a good way to get over issues. I know, I've tried it. I struggled with self harm for a very long time, almost three years. The urge to hurt yourself when you feel bad is something that never goes away, not for me anyway. There are times where things pile on top of me, where stress gets almost overwhelming and that little grinning demon at the back of my mind, hiding in the corner of my memories with red eyes and a shark tooth smile, reminds me of how satisfying it is to take a blade to my skin. _

_It took someone very special to me to pull me out of that spiral of self hate and lack of confidence, I am still with that person today and I love them very much. _

_Recently I had the strongest urge to hurt myself than I'd had in a very long time. It was so overwhelming that, for the first time since I stopped, I actually picked up a razor and held it in my fingers. I was lucky to have someone there who kept me from doing something very stupid, but I know that for others, it's not always the case. _

_I poured that energy, that feeling of depression and the desire for pain, into this story. I hope that for anyone reading who feels that same pull to hurt themselves whenever they feel bad, that it helps them realise that there is always another option.  
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_**WARNING. THIS STORY CONTAINS GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF CUTTING AND SELF HARM. **  
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Pain. Sweet, satisfying pain. It was wonderful and horrible, satisfying and yet so hungry for more. The blade rested softly on my arm, my pale skin already scarred with other wounds, all of them healed, yet some obviously pinker than others.

Twenty. This would be twenty scars now.

My long, skinny legs were crossed under me, my trench coat lying on the floor of my room along with other scattered objects. Cameras, pendrives, clothes, a few computer games. The usual looking layout for a teenage boys room.

Well, other than the small piles of UFO magazines, piles of theory papers and blueprints for machines of all kinds of natures.

Of course right now that was all secondary. My mind wasn't on the alien I was chasing, or the theories I could be reading, it was on the small razor blade held against my arm. It was on the upper half of my forearm, that was where I cut the most. Why? So if I ever had to do something like wash dishes I could roll my sleeves up just a little and no one would be the wiser of my dirty, bloody little secret.

My hand pressed against my skin further, my mind pushing me more and more. Cut. Bleed. Wince at the pain and feel that sweet wonderful release rush though you. Let that sick feeling you have every day in the bottom of your stomach, that horrible headache of a life that pounds at you from the moment you open your eyes in the morning, let it all just flow away at the tip of a blade.

I hissed as I felt my skin tear at the cold metal of the blade, my fingers pressing down on the top of it, feeling that immediate bite of pain. I dragged the blade across my arm quickly, but it was only the first slice and there was never enough with just one slice, at least, not any more.

Another followed, determination now in my eyes. I wasn't bleeding enough. I needed more pain. I deserved more pain. The next slice cut across the open wound, skin and raw flesh being parted beneath the uncaring razor, blood was welling up in the small but deep wound.

Again. That feeling of sickness, of a corpse heart beating in my chest, it was going now, being replaced by some kind of sick satisfaction that he could feel just something other than disgust at the world around me.

There, it was gone, the feeling. In it's place he could feel pain throbbing from my arm, adrenaline rushing through me. I focused on it, blotting out the world and letting a sigh escape from my lips. It felt so good, just for this moment. I could feel blood welling in my cut, running slowly down my arm, but it was okay, it was good.

The blade dropped onto my bed as I held my arm across my lap, my eyes closing as I breathed, just letting the feeling of sharp, biting pain wash across my mind.

For this moment I could forget it all. I could ignore the jeers in class, the ignorance that was spewed at me every day, the fact my sister and father barely acknowledged my existence, I could ignore it all.

And it felt so good. So satisfying, my body felt so relaxed, like I could breathe again.

Slowly I came back to the living, a small drop of blood had escaped from my wound and onto the sheets of my bed. In my focusing, I had let my arm turn slowly, allowing the blood to flow faster down across my skin. I blinked at this before turning my arm back up and reaching over my bed for something to wipe the blood away. There was always a box of tissues handy in my drawer.

I sighed again, the pain still washing over me, but now controlled, the adrenaline calming my system and making my heart beat all at the same time. I felt... good now, though I knew this fix was temporary.

I knew that what I was doing was bad, but I didn't care, it was my arm and I could do what I wanted with it. I was also smart enough to know not to go leaving evidence around. I wiped the blood from the small razor blade and placed it under a lamp, my secret kept safe for now, before looking back to my new cut.

It was bigger than the last but the last was also bigger than the one before that. Not the best of signs, but I had it under control. It was along the same lines as the others, each one crossing over the just faint veins in my arm like some kind of perverse stitching.

I continued dabbing at his arm, pressing onto the wound and wincing each time, but a tiny smile appearing on my face after. When did I become such a masochist? Maybe around the time I'd realised that I was utterly alone in the world.

Gaz lived for her games and Zim... Zim wasn't even trying. Each world domination attempt was becoming weaker than the last and my attempts to stop him the same. My spirit had always been kept up by the belief that stopping Zim was my purpose, my mission... now it seemed not even Zim cared for it any more.

I kept my sleeve rolled up, I wanted to see myself bleed, not just to keep the blood flow controlled but to make sure I didn't drip onto anything. I wasn't some idiot who wore bright clothes or let his scars show to the world. Dark colours, dark clothes, I looked like any goth-nerd in school other than my pointing sythe-like cowlick. The difference was my only friend was a psychotic, short green alien and my uncaring sister.

Great friends, huh.

I curled up onto my side, looking over at the lamp, under it was my one escape, the one thing that stopped me from throwing up every morning from simply waking up. Knowing I had that blade, that release for when I felt like tearing at my insides with claws, it... made it all bearable.

Still, how could I be like this? I shared an IQ with Johannes Kepler, I should be on the honour roll and yet I kept my grades at a B+ average because I just didn't see the point. My dad was one of the richest men on the planet, so it wasn't like I'd ever be out on the street and it wasn't like I had anything to prove to anyone.

A long time ago I'd tried to prove that Zim was an alien, but after countless failed attempts, I'd finally realised that even if people knew, they just wouldn't care. No one cared.

My arm still hurt, that dull pain lessening now, an a whisper of the old sick feeling returning. I needed to sleep, to just... shut down for a while.

My arm had stopped bleeding as much now, the blood must be clotting. Soon I'd have a brand new healing scab and eventually a sleek scar filed nicely next to all the others. I felt pathetic already, but at least I felt satisfied with myself. I had felt pain and seen myself bleed, I deserved it too.

I didn't want to do anything else now, I just wanted to lie in this bed, in my little tomb, and wish that maybe tomorrow would be different. Maybe tomorrow I would wake up in a world filled with people I could talk to, people who wouldn't care if I harmed myself.

Sometimes I think that if maybe I waited just a second more before opening my eyes in the morning, just one second more, I could find that world.

But I never do, I always wake up just a second too early. I hate this life.

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_I'll upload the next part in a short time. Depending on feedback, I may turn this into a full story, probably making it a romance/comfort story. DibxGretchen has way too few supporters and stories and it's a really interesting couple to explore since we see that she so obviously likes Dib, yet he ignores her. I really feel there's a lot to be done with that kind of dynamic between them, plus not to mention she's more episodes than Tak AND is one of the few background characters to have several lines in several episodes!  
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_I felt that also, it's been a damn long time since I've read any kind of GOOD self harm story on this site, and by GOOD, I mean one that deals with it properly and not just 'boo hoo emo cut cut cut' shit that seems to come out a lot. Self harm is just as serious as any other self destructive emotional issue, it should be dealt with as such.  
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_Hope you all enjoyed. Any feedback, what you liked/dislike, improvements, suggestions for what you'd like to see more/less off, please tell me in review form._

_P.S. If anyone was wondering, Johannes Kepler was a 16th Century astrologer and mathematician who essentially kick started the 17th Century Scientific Revolution which resulted in all our understanding of modern physics. He had an IQ of 175 and is one of the smartest men who ever lived._

_The 'wait a moment before waking up' line is a mutated form of 'wait a moment before touching the mirror' line from JTHM. I love that line a lot, so I fit it in there.  
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